


A Perfect Day for Sturgeonfish

by Kana_Go



Series: Russian to English translations [6]
Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Crack, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Pseudo-History, Riario is married and with kids, Translation in English
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 20:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14528553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kana_Go/pseuds/Kana_Go
Summary: Do not get married, folks!





	A Perfect Day for Sturgeonfish

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Хорошо ловится рыбка-стерлядь](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/378147) by H. Z.. 



> Enormous thanks to the author for this totally hilarious story and no less huge thanks to beautiful meridian_rose (meridianrose) for beta-reading!

“…to Father’s tomb. By the way, bills for May are still not sorted out, much less being paid. Besides, we haven’t been able to get to the coast for at least a year and a half, although you keep promising. Ottaviano fell off his horse today and the horse bit him! Then Ottaviano bit the horse, though… Anyway, they were pulled apart, but you must talk to your son finally! Explain to him that biting isn’t diplomatic. We’ve already had three tutors who refused to teach him.”

Caterina Sforza, angry and beautiful, glared at her husband with such sacred fury that he felt like a Turk facing divine judgement.

Creating a facade of breathless attention to his spouse’s words, Count Riario listened to the silence within his own head – and with wistful longing, he remembered times when he could just slaughter a load of miners and not be really bothered with things.

Down the hallway, screeching and stomping like a mob of demons that had possessed a herd of swine, the brothers dashed, turned round the corner. Something crashed onto the floor, judging by the staccato clatter – a vase. Someone squalled – in a pretty dignified manly squall.

Lord, Thy will be done.  
No sooner had Riario opened his mouth to try and clear his good name in matters of child-rearing than with banging and clanging that any siege weapon would’ve envied his younger daughter Bianca rode into the hall astride a chamber pot and proclaimed:

“DAAAADDYYY, I DID A POOOOO!”

The heiress’s voice matched her daddy’s one perfectly.  
Riario closed his mouth. And his eyes. He also wanted to cover his ears, but Caterina’s face had such a foreboding expression that he didn’t risk it.

(Sure, the count didn’t see her face with his eyes shut, but he could remember it from previous similar situations. A little too well.)  
Taking advantage of the fact that his wife bent over the girl to solve her undoubtedly big problem, the count sighed and made himself scarce from the hall, thanking God a dozen times for the ability to merge with shadows, acquired in the service of the Pope.

***

  
Caterina banged on the locked bedroom door with her fist. She waited for a response, didn’t receive one and repeated the procedure, saying in addition:

“My husband, open the door!”

“Sorry, love, I have it again. This. That very thing. Well, you know. Split mind, yeah. I’m afraid I might hurt you or the kids.”

“Shall I call for Doctor Moses?”  
_Doctor Moses departed to his Jewish Hell ten years ago now, but even if he were alive a bull testicles cocktail would definitely not help me. Only arsenic._ That was what Riario wanted to answer, but then he compared the force of his wife’s blow to the door with the level of her vexation and chose to say nothing.

This time she banged on the door with her foot. 

Riario managed to wriggle out of the situation.

“He… local physicians are useless spongers! I think I’ll send a note to that inventor…”

“To that heathen Florentine of yours?”

( _Why exactly is he ‘mine’?_ the count snapped to himself.)

“Yes, love. To him. To Leonardo da Vinci. Tell a messenger to get ready.”

***

  
Leo was thoughtfully reading and rereading an unexpected letter handed to him by a messenger from Imola who was no less steaming than his courser.

(“I was told to ride as fast as if demons were after me. I could barely escape from della Rovere Junior who’s the oldest among these devilkins.”)  
The count – a man of many talents – had even learnt mirror writing.

‘Artista, you owe me a favor.

(Frankly, more than one, but I intend to be benevolent and collect only one of many.)

Did you say fish were biting well in the Danube at this time of the year?’

(In the assiduously strikethrough postscript one was still able – though with an effort – to decipher:

‘SAVE ME LADS GOING COMPLETELY CRACKERS FAMILY LIFE IS A TOTAL…’

The rest was unreadable.)

***

  
The sun, engoldening the castle walls, was setting right into the expanse of the majestic river which drifted throughout the Walachian land. Evening birds were singing. Close to the bank large circular ripples were spreading out on the river surface over and over again – fish were feeding and splashing.  They were free to play in the water, the bitches. Ugh, sturgeons.   
The former Captain General of the Holy Roman Church and currently married man stretched himself out on the grass happily, and his heart played in tune with the fish.  
Just a brief day and night’s trip of bumping his arse against a saddle, and this was it – freedom, liberty, life. A fire. The best enemies within easy reach.

Actual grace! 

“But the best fishing is still in the vicinity of Vatican. Ah, I remember fishing in the troubled waters of Rome…” Leo gazed at the sanguineous sunset dreamily.

“Well perhaps you shouldn’t have walked around the eternal city with that ‘you’re all sodomites and I’m Saint Sebastian’ look?” Zo suggested.

He tossed a wineskin to the count. “Participate, freako. Don’t lie there like a total stranger.”  
Riario didn’t respond to the taunt, absorbing peace and quiet with his whole body. However, he caught the wineskin and had a hearty pull.   
“Artista…” he called lazily with his eyes still closed, and Leo turned to him. “I…erm, I grabbed half a pail of maggots. You said sturgeons would like them. And a piece of what they didn’t finish. You might want it for your experiments.”  
“Ah, this is what’s been stinking the whole time, and I kept blaming the sausage… ” Zo commented grumpily.

In contrast, the artist was pleased to see the present and, dumping the contents of the count’s saddle bag onto the grass, started baiting the hooks.

“Has it gotten that bad?” he asked in a low voice without looking up from the maggoty mess.

Riario gave a sigh.

“It’s hard to say unambiguously. Simpler to say – do not get married, sinners.”   
“But I’ve already done it. In the Sun City, for instance,” Leo answered.

He cast a line and got the first nibble immediately.

“No, I don’t mean your usual promiscuity… Do not be tied in holy matrimony for as long as possible. Sometimes I happen to think, God forgive me, but if only Thou could take the little ones… In their tender years they’d fit perfectly as angels at Thy side… Although I have grave doubts about Ottaviano. But Caterina says she’ll give birth to more.”  
Leo chuckled.

“Sorry, I can hardly understand your worries, I’m not so matrimonial yet. But you know, in winter we can bring the long lines to catch burbot this big from the bottom of the river – in December we’ll drag you off again. And until then, hang in there. You survived the Labyrinth, you’re going to survive the family.”

The count heaved even a deeper sigh than the previous one.

But fish were biting and wine was splashing in the wineskin.

Life went on. 


End file.
